Page 74 of Kiss, Kill, Thrill Me, Daddy

I throw my hand in the air, waving like I’m hailing a cab. “That’s me.” For some reason, the man stands in front of me, and takes my hand in his and squeezes. My heart races, because I’ve watched a lot ofGrey’s Anatomy, so I already know the score. If this man had good news to share, he wouldn’t need to hold my hand. There would be no hand holding or sympathetic half-smiles. He would just spit the words out.

“I-I’m so sorry, I don’t know how to make this any easier. It seems we’ve lost him.”

There’s a hand on my shoulder, but it doesn’t belong to the man in front of me. Someone gasps, but I don’t know who. Footsteps. Apologies. Whimpers. I hear so many things, but I can’t make sense of any of them.

“I’ve got you,” Brody’s pained voice says, and when I look up, I see he’s standing behind me, and the grip he has on my shoulder tightens. Wedged between us, my father gasps when Brody moves even closer. Dad tries to move away, but Brody keeps us welded together.

“Dead?” Fee whispers. “He can’t be. It’s Kincaid.” I look over at her, but her eyes are locked on Brody. “He can’t be gone.”

“No,” the man in scrubs cuts in. I look over in time to catch the color drain from the doctor’s face. “That’s not what I mean. Ah, Jesus. I’m so sorry, I meant, we’ve physically lost him. I went to check on him. His bed was empty, and his IV had been ripped out and left behind.”

“Meadows,” Brody growls, and his voice sounds more frightening than I’ve ever heard it. “I swear to God. You had one job. How the fuck do you lose a man as big as Kincaid?”

“Son,” Dad says to Brody. “Your penis is touching the back of my head.”

Brody scowls at him, and, as if he’s wanting to display his dominance, he rolls his hips forward again, making my father squirm.

The doctor—Meadows, apparently—is lifting his hands defensively. “I already told you, I’m not on top of my game today. I was day-drinking when you called. You knew the risks, and you told me to come anyway.”

Brody’s grip around me tightens. “Yeah, man. I trusted you to operate on him with a buzz. You’ve done it hundreds of times, you goddamn lush, and you’ve never had a problem. You pulled a broken-off blade from my back while you were strung out on meth, and I trusted you then, too. I figured all we had to worry about were shaky hands—I didn’t think we needed to worry about your ability to keep his ass sedated while he recovers. I swear to God, if he’s in a hallway bleeding out, I’m coming for you.”

“You can lose that tone,” Meadows says, his voice threatening. “I did you a favor today. After the bind you left us in, I shouldn’t have even agreed to this, but I did, because you’ve been my friend for over a decade. I could have let you take him to Tallulah Memorial and try to explain his gunshot wound to the authorities.”

Brody glowers at the man, but he doesn’t argue back.

“Wait,” Scotty says. “What do you mean you could’ve let us take him to a hospital? What even is this place, if not a hospital?”

Meadows raises an eyebrow. “How many hospitals have you seen built in abandoned buildings?”

Brody sighs. “This is the agency, Freakshow. It’s where I worked when we met. Meadows is the best surgeon this side ofthe border, so I knew it might be our only shot at saving Kincaid’s life.”

“The people who told you to kill me?” Scotty asks, his voice cracking. “Are they going to try to kill me again?”

“I’d stab them in the fucking cock if they even?—”

“Enough!” Fee shouts, drawing every eye in the room her way. “This doesn’t matter. Scotty’s tantrums, our geographical location. None of that matters; just Kincaid. We’ve got to find him.”

Meadows nods. “We’re working with a skeleton crew tonight. We’ve been short-staffed for a while, actually. That’s why I came out here. We’ve only got four agents on shift. I was hoping you might help us look for him.”

Before the man can even take a breath, I hop out of Dad’s lap and nod. “We need to find him. He’s all alone, probably scared out of his mind.”

“Kincaid?” Meadows says with a laugh. “Scared?”

“He is a sensitive soul,” I hiss. “And right now, he’s probably curled into a ball, waiting for me to find him.”

“Well, that’s not the man I remember, but I guess stranger things have happened.” Meadows stands and points at the double doors. “Okay, let’s get to searching.” He pauses when he spots the Bens, studying them, tops to toes. He flicks a finger back and forth between them. “You’re cute. You boys looking for a job?”

Bennet and Benji look shell-shocked. They cuddle closer to each other, Benji burying his face in Bennet’s neck as he whimpers.

“We’re not killers,” Bennet says.

Meadows laughs and shakes his head, pointing at the empty reception desk. “We need a receptionist, actually. You’d both look adorable behind the desk.”

Benji just whimpers louder as Bennet scoffs at Meadows. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Meadows shrugs. “Well, if you change your mind.” He leadsus through the doors, which open into a narrow hallway. The walls in here also look to be made of concrete, which I still don’t really understand, but that’s hardly something I should be focusing on when Abi’s life is on the line.

The halls are dark and they break off in inconsistent patterns. We make a left, a right, three more lefts, only to come to the end of a hallway with no means of exit. I watch as Meadows kneels down and reaches for a floorboard. Once he touches the black plank of wood, it lifts on its own like it’s been constructed with hydraulics. With the floorboard raised, I can see a small pin pad, each number on the pad glowing with green light. He types in an unnecessarily long number that’s at least twenty digits long. There’s a clicking sound, then a hiss, and my eyes blow wide as the concrete wall ahead of us lowers into the floor.

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